Gozo 2007

Caves 'n' Corals

All photography on this site by Estelle Sandford

Wells Diving Group Holiday in Gozo

16th October

After a fairly painless, despite being early, start at Bristol Airport, we were soon on our way flying to Malta. On landing at Malta International Airport, we were swiftly collected by our representative minibuses organised by Calypso Diving Centre and whizzed across the island to the ferry terminal. There was a Gozo ferry in port, so we hurriedly got our tickets and boarded it as foot passengers. We had caught a slightly earlier ferry than had been anticipated so paid the price of having to wait for our lift from Mgarr to Marsalforn. We were taken straight to our apartments and soon after were down at the dive centre checking in to go diving - well a few of us keen ones anyway! This meant having to get our 'rent-a-wrecks' a day early, but we were soon off for our first dive at Dwerja - the Blue Hole - hadn't unpacked the camera so no images today!

17th October

First dive of the day was a site to the left of the Blue Hole called Coral Cave. Quite a pretty site with quite a lot of small life in the cave. André and I did a training dive for Penny and Mike while the rest dived the Inland Sea and out of the tunnel to the Ocean. At the end of the training session, André and I went for a short dive through the tunnel ourselves to use up the spare air.

18th October

For today's diving, we chartered Tony's Diving Services to take us out on a hard boat. We'd got a cancellation and as the weather for the rest of the week turned out, this was the best possible day we could have got the day boat for. Our first dive was the P29, which was a gunboat sunk a few years earlier. We could see the wreck from just below the surface but because it was so new, the sea hasn't really 'claimed' it yet so not a lot of life, just interesting wreck stuff. We went for lunch in a bay by Comino and a few of the lads decided to have some fun snorkelling and climbing/tombstoning of the rocks. For our second dive we went to Cominotto Cave (which Tony referred to as Tony's Cave, and it appears to have many other names also). We went into the cave and came up into airspace inside the cave and then back out again and swam around towards the Blue Lagoon. Very pleasant day out and lovely diving.

19th October

Today we went to a site not far from Mgarr - you know when a place is a bit dive orientated when there are road signs saying 'diving wrecks' to find the site from the main road! The Cominoland and Karwela had only been sunk within the last year or so, and were not in any of the current guides, but they were conveniently located close to the Xlendi Ferry wreck site and there is a board at the site with all the bearings for these wrecks on. Colin and I made the decision to go for the middle wreck, the Karwela and got the bearing to perfection and landed at the bow. On the wreck is an old VW Beetle and not much else really and it's too new for any life. Second dive was a trip back to the Blue Hole and Norm, Colin and I found the chimney from the top and went down it. We went past the Azure Window and could see the shadow from around 20m as the viz was so good.

20th October

As we enjoyed the wrecks so much yesterday, it was back to the same site to have another trip. This time I dived with Norm and as he'd done the Cominoland yesterday and I'd done the Karwela, we compromised and decided to have a go at doing both. We did it and not only that, we navigated to perfection back to the steps to get out. The weather was deteriorating so many sites now blown out, but the Inland Sea and turn right was recommended, so this was our second dive. It was a bit like a washing machine with the swell but was still quite a pleasant dive and we saw barracuda and lots of swarming fish.

21st October

The weather had really blown up now and the only site left to every diver on the island was Mgarr Ix-Xini, which was completely sheltered, but very shallow. Saw a flying gurnard, octopus and many flatties. Second dive was a training dive for Mike and Penny. With an early finish and expectations of a complete lack of diving for our last day, we hit Bo Jangles and pretty much trapped ourselves in there with the river of rain coming down the road!

22nd October

As expected there was no chance of diving today as the winds had really blown up. The road outside the dive centre was covered in bricks and rocks from what the tide had thrown over the wall. We took a drive around the island and Dwerja was a completely different picture to earlier in the week. The Inland Sea had a tidal wave coming through the tunnel and the surf was going over the Azure Window. Very impressive sights and a reminder of the power of the sea.

Big thanks go to the staff at Calypso Diving Centre for looking after us so well.